


Ways of Looking

by borntoblue



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 17:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14086164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borntoblue/pseuds/borntoblue
Summary: Jisung decides that filming Daniel while he’s doing nothing is a fun way to spend an afternoon.





	Ways of Looking

**Author's Note:**

> When I came up with this idea I thought it was going to be a 1k-ish pre-relationship ~tension~ fic with only one scene but. You know how it is.

It takes Daniel a little longer than it should to figure out that Jisung is filming him.

He thought Jisung was just getting used to holding the camera. Jisung, as he’s told Daniel dozens of times in the lead-up to today, knows far more about being filmed than he does about filming other people, and he was too busy to come over to Daniel’s place to fiddle with his camera beforehand. Daniel’s been trying all morning to tell Jisung that holding a camera at a decent angle is not that hard, teasing him over and over that the plan isn’t anything half as complicated as navigating a subway station through a video camera screen so he doesn’t need to do that, but it’s only now, sitting down calmly on the train, that he notices the red recording light is on.

His surprise must show on his face, because Jisung starts grinning before Daniel even speaks.

“Hyung, are you recording this?”

Jisung raises an eyebrow, “You wanted to be filmed, didn’t you?”

“Not right now,” Daniel can’t help the whine that gets into that sentence. He asked Jisung to film him doing freestyle dance, not catalogue the quiet subway journey before he does anything. “You’re wasting the battery.”

“It’s not a waste. You’ll treasure all footage of you in your beautiful, youthful prime someday,” Jisung jokes, instead of actually explaining.

Two can play at the ‘not being serious at all’ game, if that’s what Jisung wants to do, “What, do you wish you had more video of when you were young and hot?”

Daniel knows, on a personal level, that Jisung is still both of those things, but Jisung takes Daniel’s delivery seriously enough to elbow him for it, and while doing so he forgets about the arm holding the camera for a second and lets it wave around. Now, in an even bigger waste of camera data, Jisung is probably just filming some random peoples’ knees.

He realizes what’s happened a second later though, and brings the lens back to being trained on Daniel’s face. Knowing now that he’s being recorded, Daniel feels scrutinized and embarrassed by having it so close. 

“Seriously, why are you recording me now,” Daniel brings his hands up to his face, hiding most of it, but the way Jisung smiles suggests he just finds the gesture cute.

“Don’t think too much of it,” Jisung looks up from the camera viewfinder, making eye contact with Daniel for the first time since they set foot in the station. “I’ll stop filming if you really want me to, I just thought it would be nice to get some of this too. I’ll be careful with the battery so don’t worry about that.”

Jisung seems oddly serious now, and when Daniel thinks about it, he doesn’t actually mind being recorded like this if it’s Jisung behind the camera. He would like to know why Jisung thinks getting low-key videos of him walking around would be “nice,” but it’s not like the reason’s going to be anything Daniel doesn’t like. They’re close friends and Jisung never has anything but good intentions. Daniel can’t even think of a nefarious reason to get this kind of video, so if Jisung wants some seemingly pointless footage, why should Daniel object?

The only real downside he can think of is that it will be a little embarrassing to be stared at by someone he likes but. Well. Daniel can’t explain that to Jisung, for obvious reasons. Best to leave it alone.

Now finished thinking through the question, Daniel relents, “I guess I won’t stop you if you keep an eye on the battery.”

“How generous of you,” Jisung’s tone is sarcastic, but Daniel can tell from how quickly he starts smiling again that Jisung’s actually happy Daniel gave him permission to continue filming.

Strange that he’d be so intent on this without fully explaining why, Jisung is usually so eager to share his thoughts, feelings, opinions that even after years of friendship Daniel learns something new about him every day, but if he’s not saying anything then it’s probably not too important. Even Jisung is inexplicable, sometimes.

While Daniel zones out, Jisung fiddles with the camera lens, and he seems surprised as it moves, seeming to zoom in on Daniel’s face even further.

“Wow, I can see your pores with this thing!”

That gets Daniel properly embarrassed, “Don’t film those, at least.”

“No, no,” Jisung’s back in joke mode, grinning to himself, “this is very important video journalism. Kang Daniel has pores: contrary to popular belief, he’s a human being after all!”

“Who believes I’m not,” Daniel asks, already laughing.

They amuse themselves with the camera’s zoom function for the rest of the train ride, scrutinizing the pattern of the floor from way closer than intended and making themselves dizzy by filming through the window until they’re approaching their stop, at which point Jisung gets one last shot of Daniel before putting away the camera for the time being.

“I got enough shots of you inside the subway station earlier,” he says jokingly, like he’s filming a movie and Daniel’s the star.

Maybe that’s it, actually, Jisung would probably love to make a movie even though Daniel’s not sure un-plotted slice of life would be his style, but the closer to their destination Daniel gets the closer he is to dancing and the more occupied he is with the thought of performing, today, in front of an audience.

When the train reaches their stop, Daniel emerges eagerly, speculation about the random filming fully pushed to the wayside as he starts off towards the main event of the day.

 

 

The street dancing event is a fifteen minute walk from the station, so Jisung has more than enough time to pull the camera out again before they reach the park they’re looking for. Now that they’re not in a subway station he starts recording the scenery too, but still the majority of the camera’s recording time is taken up by Daniel. Having gotten used to it by now, Daniel finds himself playing along, doing a “v” sign whenever Jisung returns the lens’ view to him and following along with Jisung’s suggestions to make the footage a little more exciting.

Jisung gets in front of him at some point and demands a runway walk, which Daniel does and Jisung exaggeratedly fawns over until a passing couple gives them a funny look, at which point they laugh and move on.

Daniel casts a glance at their surroundings when they return to their normal speed, and is surprised to find their destination is right across the street from the end of their current block.

He can’t help the excitement that comes up when he sees it, “The park’s right over there!”

Jisung looks up from the viewfinder for the first time in a while, squinting at the park sign.

“You’re right, there it is” he laughs a little to himself. “You know, I got the sign on camera and read it but still didn’t put two and two together.”

“Too distracted by my dashing good looks?” Daniel jokes, grinning and moving his hand as if to flip long hair he doesn’t actually have.

Jisung looks up at him, rolling his eyes but still smiling, “Something like that.”

Daniel’s caught off-guard by the indirect compliment for a second, but he doesn’t let it show. The park’s too close by to dwell on something else anyways; both he and Jisung have started walking faster now that they can see it and they reach the entrance before either of them start talking again.

They both stop once they get there, Daniel scanning the area carefully while Jisung gets more scenery footage, tilting the camera up to get a better view of the trees.

It doesn’t take long for Daniel to spot the largest clump of people in the area, even from a distance obviously young people in things generally worn to dance class, and Daniel grins outright as he sees them.

“Across the park, over there!”

Jisung doesn’t look at Daniel, seemingly still distracted by the trees, and though Daniel can appreciate that it’s a nice sunny day and Jisung must be getting great shots of the light filtering through the leaves, he wants to dance.

Genuinely forgetting his reservations for a second, Daniel grabs Jisung’s free hand and drags him forward.

Jisung sputters at first, but Daniel just says “let’s go” and pulls a little harder, then Jisung gets the message and the two of them rush over to the gathered crowd, music becoming audible and then louder as they approach. A cheer goes up not too long before they reach it, and Daniel feels more eager to get started than ever.

As soon as they’re on the edge of the circle Daniel starts taking his jacket off, only remembering to let go of Jisung’s hand when he’s already removed the other sleeve. He’d be embarrassed about that, if he had the time, but he needs to focus.

“You’re going right away?” Jisung asks, holding the camera up to look at Daniel’s face again. He looks a little flushed, normally Daniel would tease him about that since they didn’t run much at all, but he does want to get started and should probably answer Jisung’s question before dashing off.

“Maybe not this instant,” Daniel answers, even as he starts to stretch his arms and legs in preparation, “but I want to be ready when I go.”

He can see Jisung smile fondly behind the camera, now having Daniel’s jacket folded over his arm, and Daniel pauses to look at him.

He hadn’t actually meant to invite Jisung specifically, when he asked his friends if anyone would do him the favour of filming him at the street dancing event he was going to attend next weekend. He’d thought about asking Jisung to do it when he first got the idea, but talked himself out of it as he reasoned that inviting someone he has a crush on might be a bit of a distraction, might become the main event in itself. 

He’d even worried about it a bit when Jisung was the one who volunteered to film, but clearly he’d been wrong about how he’d feel, because looking at Jisung now, while his smile’s so bright, feels way more like encouragement than a distraction.

Daniel thinks he’ll be able to well.

He grins at the thought, gesturing for Jisung to follow him, and the two of them slip through a couple rows of people to get to the centre.

Whoever set up the event brought a small stage-sized mat with them so nobody has to dance on concrete or grass, which is a relief. There are two people in the centre of the mat already, showing off fast and elaborate footwork when Daniel first gets a full view of them, though only two seconds pass before the person further from Daniel transitions faster than his eye can really follow into balancing on their hands and smoothly spinning around, which gets them a lot of cheering and makes the dancer closest to Daniel back down immediately.

The victorious dancer gets back up to their feet, taking the breather moment to do less complicated moves although they still look confident and sharp enough to be impressive, and Jisung nudges Daniel with his elbow.

Daniel looks away from the centre for a second, directly down at Jisung, who gestures with his head towards the centre.

“Get in there before you get nervous,” Jisung says. It’s hard to hear him as the people around them cheer again, but Daniel knows what he meant, and he doesn’t need to hear Jisung’s words clearly to get the effect.

Daniel steps forward, down into one of his simpler, more compact spinning moves to get going, before sticking his legs out into a wider one and getting himself to his feet to look at his opponent.

They’re grinning, Daniel’s grinning, the excitement around them is palpable, and Daniel has a second’s thought that there’s very little better than this before moving right into his next move.

 

 

Freestyle in front of an audience is something Daniel has done before, it’s something he has confidence in and enjoys enough that he does it not to prove himself but to have fun, but today feels like something of a milestone anyways.

Daniel goes in, dances, and gets pushed out so many times he loses track, but he doesn’t feel any trepidation doing any of it. Entering the centre feels like more of a thrill than something to fear, he’s focused enough that he doesn’t make think about his mistakes any longer than he needs to, and defeat doesn’t feel so bad when he can go back to Jisung, chat with him and listen to his compliments and watch other people dance for a bit.

Even while Daniel is dancing and mostly in his own head, Jisung is an asset. Daniel doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that he works up to more complicated maneuvers than usual when he remembers he’s being filmed by someone who’s cheering him on and who he wants to impress. 

Though he can’t deny that even if Jisung isn’t entirely a distraction, he does get distracted by him on occasion. Daniel looks back at him often enough that the audience begins to catch on and laugh a little when he does it, and one of the dancers Daniel faces off against gets annoyed with him for the habit.

“Why do you like the camera so much, are you an idol or something?” he asks, clearly trying to provoke Daniel, get his attention back on the dancing.

Daniel probably should have focused, but he couldn’t resist saying “maybe” and giving a cheesy wink to the camera instead.

Everyone who saw it laughed, Jisung included even though he rolled his eyes while he did, and Daniel ended up lasting longer than the guy who heckled him, though it took a while to get him to concede and leave.

By the end of the day the audience even knows Daniel’s name thanks to Jisung’s more vocal encouragements, so when Daniel gets a little too winded to be cool anymore, the stream of volunteer dancers slows down, and the crowd starts to disperse, a woman, who introduces herself as the event organizer, flags Daniel down by name without having to ask.

She compliments him first, which has Daniel beaming for the rest of the conversation while they talk about whether he’s part of a team, where he practices, and why he hadn’t come to any of their events earlier.

Both Daniel and Jisung stick around to answer her questions and chat for a while, though since there’s only so much Jisung can say about dance, he mostly hovers by Daniel’s shoulder. He introduces himself, makes his joke about how he only knows girl group cover dances, teases Daniel when he gets the chance, and says surprisingly little else until the organizer turns to him.

“Thanks for filming by the way, that was a great idea,” she looks down at the camera, still held steadily and at face level by Jisung, then blinks a couple times. “Wait, is it still recording?”

Both Daniel and Jisung look at the camera for the first time in a while, and both gape because after a solid hour of filming in the morning and three continuous hours of freestyle dance, the recording light of Daniel’s second-hand video camera is, in fact, still on.

Jisung laughs in disbelief as he checks the viewfinder, “There’s still four hours worth of space, too, wow. Sorry about that, I stopped paying attention a while back. I’ll delete the footage of us talking just now, don’t worry.”

He does that, very carefully, and then turns the camera off for the rest of their conversation with the organizer, where she invites them to anything her team hosts in the future and gives Jisung her email so he can send the dance footage to her.

“It’ll be great for our social media, which I’m also in charge of, so it’s me personally who will be mad if you forget, okay?” she says, jokingly stern about it.

Jisung salutes in response and they go their separate ways shortly after that, with the organizer going to help with clean-up while Daniel and Jisung head back towards the subway station. 

Daniel starts to notice the time as they make their way back through the park. It’s an early autumn evening, with the sun just starting to cross the horizon, and Daniel doesn’t have to look at his phone to know it’s probably around the time he and Jisung should be eating dinner.

Jisung, for his part, has clearly turned the camera on again, though he’s not filming Daniel as they walk but replaying footage from one of Daniel’s dance battles. He stops in his tracks to watch more carefully and Daniel stops right behind him, watching over Jisung’s shoulder 

As the on-screen Daniel enters the fray again, milking the now-familiar audience for reactions before he goes into some footwork, Jisung starts to speak.

“You know you’re genuinely really cool, right?”

The words alone would make Daniel beam, but there’s an earnest quality to Jisung’s voice as he says it that has Daniel blushing.

“Thanks,” Daniel finds himself looking away even though Jisung can’t see his face, “you filmed it really well.”

He wonders how obvious he’s being right now, wonders just how hard any of his other friends would be laughing at his situation. He’s close enough that he could hug Jisung if he had just acted quick enough to make it seem friendly, but now he’s hovering a little too closely behind Jisung while his cheeks are practically burning and he’s pretty sure that Jisung’s going to notice he’s acting weird once he turns around.

Jisung continues to look down at the camera though. He pauses the recording, switches back to the camera’s main screen, and takes a step away from Daniel before finally facing him.

“I can’t take all that much credit, though,” he says, not quite meeting Daniel’s eyes. “I just held a piece of fancy plastic still, you’re the one who was dancing and watching the camera.”

Daniel’s about to argue that, but then Jisung continues with:

“Besides, you’re so handsome you could probably just stand there and it would still be good footage, no effort necessary on my part.”

Jisung’s clearly teasing him, his smile is a little too pleased with itself, but even with that context, if Daniel’s face wasn’t visibly red before, it must be now.

“That’s not true and you know it,” he retorts, knowing he sounds a little petulant, and Jisung just laughs.

Daniel’s still reeling a little from the exchange, Jisung was clearly joking at least a little but he could have been telling the truth, he could have been flirting if even it’s unlikely, so Daniel doesn’t say anything as Jisung brings the camera up to his face again, and before Daniel can function enough to talk, Jisung’s turned the recording light on again.

“Anyways, I haven’t got quite enough footage for my future hit tv show quite yet, so let’s get going.”

Somehow that joke snaps Daniel back into reality, gets him to calm down and laugh without being confused about feelings.

He’s able to smile at Jisung easily as he jokes back, “So it’s a show now?”

“It’s been a show since the beginning,” Jisung insists, and Daniel just lets him have that one as they begin to walk out onto the street.

There’s a few beats of silence as the two of them cross the road back to the subway. It’s getting dark enough that streetlights are turning on, making it ever more clear that it should be time to call it a day. Most of Daniel agrees, his whole body aches and there’s a part of him that wants to be on the subway back home right now, but there’s an equally large part, the part watching Jisung crouch and spin around in weird ways as he supposedly tries to get good shots of the darkening street, that feels so good it doesn’t want the day to end.

About two thirds of the way to the station, Jisung’s walking backwards to film Daniel make his way down the street yet again when he bumps into a menu board behind him.

He stumbles only a little bit but Daniel steps forward anyways, grabbing Jisung’s arm before he falls too far.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he says before Daniel even opens his mouth to talk. “I didn’t lose my balance that much, stop looking so concerned.”

Daniel can’t help that, though. Jisung clearly is fine, he balanced himself a split second after Daniel grabbed his arm, but the worry was automatic and he can’t justify the excess of it, “I was just worried you’d drop the camera.”

“You haven’t looked at the camera even once, you are clearly checking on me you liar.”

Daniel can’t refute that. He lets go of Jisung’s arm as Jisung narrows his eyes at him, and suddenly the menu board Jisung just ran into seems a lot more interesting than it did before. 

“Should we get dinner before we head back?”

Daniel looks back to Jisung for his reaction, and Jisung just stares at him blankly.

He smiles, hoping it’s charming enough that Jisung accepts the topic change, “You ran into an ad for a ramen place and it looks pretty good.”

Jisung rolls his eyes, exaggeratedly so Daniel knows he’s not actually that unimpressed.

“Oh, sure, use my bad luck to pick your dinner,” he says, but before Daniel can get a word in edgewise he continues, “and then you’ll try to get me to pay because you’re tired from dancing and I’m the older one so I’m supposed to take care of you even though I’m already doing you a favour with the filming thing and—”

“I’ll pay,” Daniel offers instantly.

Jisung looks a little surprised, but that quickly turns into a smile, “Really?”

Daniel nods.

It doesn’t take anymore than that to convince Jisung that dinner would be a great idea.

Jisung heads to the restaurant door with what looks like far more energy than he had before and Daniel laughs as he does, following behind him with the thought that as tired as he is, spending time with Jisung like this is more than worth getting home late.

 

 

Jisung sets the camera on the table as they eat, at an angle where both of them are in the frame, and aside from a few jokes as they wait for their food about how Jisung’s making a proper video diary out of it now, Daniel mostly forgets they’re filming themselves until they start on a fake meokbang bit halfway through eating. As he watches Jisung show off three different kinds of exaggerated gasp, it occurs to him that actually, Jisung is good at making eating funny and even if it’s just for Daniel’s own amusement, he kind of wants to preserve Jisung’s faces for later.

Daniel puts down his spoon and grabs the camera, but once he does so, Jisung’s eyes widen and he swallows hurriedly.

Just like Daniel felt this morning, Jisung looks embarrassed with the camera trained on him, “Hey, we were already filming this.”

“It’ll look better this way,” Daniel’s intent on the viewfinder so he’s not sure if Jisung can see it, but he’s smiling quite a bit already as he records Jisung’s wide-eyed expression. “You filmed me all morning, this is only fair.”

Jisung makes a face that Daniel can’t easily describe, somehow conveying “i’m not a fan but i can’t argue with that logic” by simply pursing his lips and tilting his head to the side.

This kind of thing is exactly what Daniel wanted to get on camera. He feels himself smiling even more.

“What was it you were saying about our side dishes?…”

Jisung, good sport that he is, picks up right where he left off in his over-cutesy meokbang act, and Daniel laughs and plays along from behind the camera while he keeps an eye on the viewfinder.

Holding the camera is pretty much what he would have expected in a lot of ways. It’s his own camera after all, he’s used it before so he knows that it’s hard to hold keep still with one hand and that the colours of the footage look brighter than the colours in reality, but Daniel didn’t quite expect the way that watching Jisung through a camera changes the way he sees him. 

Daniel’s only used the camera for cat videos before and it’s a weird experience to film a person instead. As their meal continues, he notices first that Jisung looks closer than he really is in a way that can be flustering. Daniel has to eat with one hand on account of the camera, and at one point Jisung gets so fed up with Daniel dropping food back in his bowl that he feeds Daniel himself and when he does so, the camera shows Jisung’s face getting so close that Daniel finds himself looking away from the viewfinder and getting quiet as Jisung puts the food in his mouth. He notices second that through the camera he can look at Jisung for far longer than people usually tolerate. If Daniel didn’t have the camera, he’s pretty sure that Jisung would feel stared-at right now and wouldn’t be quite as energetic as he is.

The third thing Daniel notices while holding the camera is that actually, reality looks better. It’s a middle-brow second-hand video camera in the end, and Jisung looks so much more vibrant and full whenever Daniel looks up from the viewfinder that he’s kind of struck by it.

Since they talk so much and Daniel’s one-handed eating slows them down further until Jisung makes Daniel put the camera away, dinner takes a while and it’s properly dark out by the time Daniel and Jisung walk out the door. Having forgotten to take off his jacket in the building, Jisung shivers as they take stock of their newly-darkened surroundings.

“Let’s get to the station quickly,” he says, evidently quite cold as he fidgets with his hands inside his pockets.

Daniel agrees so they set out at a fast pace that keeps both of them quiet as they make their way down the sidewalk.

Jisung seems to be checking their surroundings, making sure that they’re really headed in the direction of the subway station, but in the aftermath of having filmed him, Daniel’s more focused on Jisung.

He kind of wants to take the camera out again, to capture the way Jisung’s quietly muttering something about directions, the way his lips are pursed in concentration and his hair dye becomes an unintended gradient under the streetlight. He makes for a great picture, and even though Daniel doesn’t get it on camera in the end, he’s full and happy and he thinks he’ll remember Jisung’s fondly amused smile when he notices Daniel staring in total detail even if he doesn’t have any other record.

“Am I that interesting now that you’ve filmed me?” Jisung asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re always interesting,” Daniel answers without thinking.

Jisung takes a hand out of his pocket just to hit Daniel’s shoulder lightly, “Flatterer.”

Daniel laughs, knowing it’s what Jisung expects from that kind of teasing, but it sounds kind of empty even to him. He meant that compliment. It wasn’t the camera making him look, all the camera did was make him look a little closer.

His brain circles back to Jisung’s question, wondering if the subtext there was that Jisung found Daniel more interesting to look at after filming him. Daniel dismisses the thought at first, it would mean Jisung wanted to watch him in the first place, and he’s pretty sure that he’d know if Jisung did.

Then, finally, as he chews on that, it dawns on Daniel that although it was through the camera, Jisung’s actually been staring at him all day and he never did explain why he wanted to.

Jisung’s even seemed to have fun watching Daniel through the camera, to the degree of filming him when he’s just walking down the street. That on top of the way Daniel felt while filming Jisung, with the extra closeness and the way he could get away with staring for what felt like forever makes Daniel’s momentary hope almost plausible.

It becomes even more plausible when Daniel adds in the compliments when they started walking back and he starts to think that just maybe, he should hold onto the hope that Jisung’s interested after all.

The two of them reach the subway station more or less in silence, and Jisung’s starting to eye Daniel with some mix of suspicion and concern, knowing as surely as Daniel does that he’s been weirdly unresponsive to his last few attempts at conversation.

Jisung knocks on Daniel’s shoulder, making absolutely sure that he has his attention, “You haven’t been talking, are you tired or?…”

“Kinda,” that’s not the whole truth, obviously, but Daniel doesn’t think the top of the subway station stairs is the best place to have this conversation. “I had my moment, I’ll be better at listening now.”

“You better,” Jisung’s pout actually seems kind of real this time. “You’re not rid of me yet, you know.”

That joke gives Daniel enough pause that he doesn’t get the chance to say that’s the opposite of what he wants before Jisung starts talking about the dance event again, seeming to have assumed Daniel’s still too tired to respond quickly. Daniel shakes his head to clear it as Jisung walks ahead of him, down the staircase, and by the time they reach the train platform they’ve settled back into easy rapport again.

They’ve timed things well because the platform’s basically empty and the train comes in only a few minutes. Jisung looks up the group that organized the event on his phone while they have the spare time and with Daniel hovering over his shoulder, the two of them scroll through the group’s website.

“Guess we gotta think about loading our footage onto a computer, huh,” Jisung says once they’ve gleaned all they can from the site.

Since Daniel was still thinking about the site’s event schedule, the video issue had not quite occurred to him yet, “Which one of us should do that? It’s my camera, but you did most of the filming and have the email address…”

“The email address isn’t a problem in the least, I can just send it to you,” Jisung puts his phone away again, and leans back on the bench while stretching out his legs as far as he can. “The problem is that neither of us really know how to edit video, so it’s going to be kind of a chore to cut out what the organizer wants from all the footage of you walking down the street looking good.”

There, that was another compliment to his looks, maybe Daniel really isn’t getting his hopes up for nothing? He can’t think about that too much though, because Jisung’s looking at him expectantly for a response. 

“You were the one who wanted all the extra video,” Daniel makes sure to point out, “so wouldn’t you want to keep it? I can lend you the cords and stuff, that’s no problem either.”

Jisung pauses for a second, staring ahead and mulling the decision over.

“To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking of the endgame when I pulled the camera out, so you can have all the extra footage if you want,” he looks sheepish all of a sudden, staring at the ground in front of him as Daniel listens to his words carefully. “You filmed some extra video too, right? Don’t you want to keep that?”

Daniel can’t even think about that question, he’s so focused on what it means that Jisung had no endgame this morning. Did he just want to play around and fill time, then, or did he want an excuse to look at Daniel or?…

This kind of speculation is getting him nowhere, Daniel realizes. If he wants to know, he’ll have to ask Jisung directly. The thought of that alone is nerve-wracking as hell, but it’s getting to the point that Daniel’s sure he’d hate not having any answer more than going through the process of getting one.

The answer may even turn out to be a good thing, if Daniel’s right about what it would be.

Daniel’s saved from having to respond to Jisung’s question about the footage by the arrival of the subway. The two of them stand up at the same time as it pulls into the station, and as they wait for the few people inside to get out, Daniel quickly gauges which of the doors closest to them would be better if he wants an empty car to talk to Jisung in.

Thankfully, although someone else heads into the car to their right, the one to their left is empty. Without thinking about it, Daniel grabs Jisung’s hand for the second time today to guide him to the door on the left.

This time, Jisung’s sputtering is halfway to a laugh, “What’s so important about this specific subway car?”

“It’s empty, and I have a question to ask you.”

“You still haven’t answered me about the video, you know,” Jisung insists as Daniel drags him forward, but once they cross the threshold into the train and Daniel lets go of his hand, he doesn’t bring it up again.

They look at each other, standing in front of the train’s door silently for a second until it starts up and they both stumble.

“We should sit down,” Jisung says.

Daniel nods though he’s not sure Jisung sees it since he turns around and sits before Daniel does. Daniel, naturally, sits down right beside him, and as much as he can tell Jisung’s looking right at him, he finds it hard to look at Jisung as he tries to think of exactly how he wants to say this.

Finally, he does look up and it catches up to him that it’s Jisung he’s sitting next to, Jisung whose presence usually helps him feel less nervous and who won’t think less of him for phrasing a single question awkwardly or asking an awkward question when he genuinely wants the answer.

Even with that thought and Jisung’s full, serious attention, Daniel has to swallow before he’s able to say it.

“Can you tell me the real reason you wanted to film me so much?”

Jisung’s eyes widen, involuntarily and not exaggerated at all, and he looks down and to the right, not meeting Daniel’s eyes anymore.

“The real reason is kinda…” he lets out a little exhale, bordering on exasperated though Daniel thinks that feeling’s directed at himself, “Embarrassing?…”

“I want to hear it.”

Jisung looks up again, narrowing his eyes at Daniel’s expression, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Daniel watches as Jisung seems to consider what to say next, “absolutely.”

“Well, if it’s absolutely, then…”

Jisung looks at Daniel a moment more, seeming to look over him for something. Sincerity, if Daniel had to guess, and he has plenty of that right now so he’s glad when Jisung seems to see that and concede something to himself, even though his eyes dart away to the side again.

“When I said embarrassing, I meant it, but I don’t want to lie to you so I guess that means I have to admit that I just wanted to watch you?”

Even though it’s kind of what he suspected and very much what he wanted to hear, all Daniel finds himself saying is: 

“Oh?”

Jisung is properly embarrassed now, looking up at the ceiling as the tips of his ears become an obvious red, “I don’t know how else to explain it, when we were walking over to the station I thought you looked great and then remembered I was holding the camera, so I turned it on to get the shot and well, you know.” 

Daniel kind of knows, but he still wants to hear Jisung say it, “Yeah?”

“What else do you want from me, Kang Daniel. Once I started watching you that way, I didn’t want to stop because you look good, I like you, I thought it might be fun for you and also nice for me, et cetera.”

“That’s a lot at once…” Daniel is apparently too flustered to say anything intelligent now.

“You’re the one who asked for more,” Jisung turns to Daniel again, swatting at his chest without any real heat in it. “Now you do me a favour and say something with actual meaning in it before I decide this was ill-advised.”

Daniel can’t help but grin as he mentally goes over Jisung’s words again, “You said you liked me somewhere in the middle there?”

Jisung goes quiet for a moment. He doesn’t actually need to answer Daniel’s question, they both know what he said, and Daniel knows how he feels about it.

Realizing he’s not at his most eloquent when he’s this happy, Daniel puts his arms around Jisung in a way that’s probably very awkward while they’re sitting down beside each other, but Jisung moves to accommodate him and is definitely smiling when Daniel gets a good look at his face again.

After that moment, Daniel knows what to say next, “Should we go out, then?…”

Daniel thought that was better, but Jisung laughs a little, a mix of fond and exasperated again.

“You missed a step.”

“Oh,” Daniel laughs along now that he realizes what Jisung means, “I like you too.”

Jisung leans down onto Daniel’s shoulder, still smiling, “Good, now I don’t have to get off at the next stop and walk home in a miasma of shame.”

“I wouldn’t let you do that.”

“So gentlemanly,” Jisung teases immediately, though he sounds genuinely pleased, “should I expect you to be so gallant all the time from now on?”

“Some of the time maybe?…”

Jisung swats at him jokingly and Daniel laughs probably far more than the joke really merited, but after months of internal awkwardness and worry he’s downright giddy that he’s here, finally talked to Jisung, and it all went so well that not only is Jisung cuddling him but they can joke around as easily as before.

They stay like that, smiling and chatting and completely wrapped up in each other until they get to their stop, where this time, as they exit the train, it’s Jisung who grabs Daniel’s hand.

“Come on, we’re going to my place so you can drop off the camera there. You can bring the cords over and we can do the editing together later.”

“Are sure you don’t want to get it out and film me more?” Daniel jokes, to which Jisung actually laughs.

“No, no, we’ve had enough of that,” he continues to smile, tugging Daniel even more insistently in the direction of his apartment. “Excuses are done, we’re dating and I can look at you as much as I want.”

Daniel agrees to that easily and follows Jisung down the street. It’s dark enough that it’s hard to see when they aren’t directly beneath a streetlight but Daniel finds that he’s happy enough that he doesn’t care, firmly holding Jisung’s hand and staring after him all the while.


End file.
